The Blue Seed
by Born-Of-Elven-Blood
Summary: "A seed that was never going to grow..." - A small collection of vignettes within a vignette, in which Obi realizes at last where he wants to plant the blue orbia seed he received from Ryu, and Shirayuki realizes that straightforward feelings are often complicated by circumstance. [Shirayuki x Obi]


**Disclaimer** : _Akagami no Shirayukihime_ belongs to Sorata Akizuki-sensei, and probably various other people who are not me; this little amalgamation of vignettes is purely for entertainment (mostly mine) and is not for sale or profit.

 **Warnings** : partial nudity, wanton sentimentality, character death

Cannon as of Chapter 45; potentially AU after that (that's as far as I've read). Thank you to Swartzvald for proofreading!

I jotted this down on loose leaf over the course of two hours at one in the morning while perched precariously on the edge of a folding chair in a dark room, trying desperately not to wake a sleeping baby - never know when inspiration will strike, eh? So if it's awful, that's why; and if it's good, well, that's just how awesome I am. Please enjoy!

.

* * *

 _ **The Blue Seed**_

 _ **.**_

* * *

" _Little Ryu," Obi calls from the door to the greenhouse. Ryu looks up from where he crouches scribbling notes with a preoccupied air. The kid always seems to be on the floor. Smiling, he holds out the little handful of jewel-like orbia seeds. "You can have these back."_

 _Ryu blinks blandly. "Why?"_

 _Obi shrugs and saunters over to sit on the stone ledge of the herb bed next to him._

" _I don't know how long I'll be staying in this castle," he admits causally, "I don't want to leave anything behind."_

 _It's true enough. It's not like he's going to tell a twelve-year-old what he's really thinking. He barely grasps it himself._

 _If Ryu is devastated by the news of Obi's possible impending departure, it doesn't show in the slightest._

" _All the more reason to keep them," he replies._

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Plant them when you find the place you're going to stay. They can flower there."_

 _Obi's brow furrows, but before he can speak, there is a commotion at the greenhouse door and Shirayuki bursts in carrying a planter full of flowers._

" _There you are Ryu!" she exclaims. "I was worried when I couldn't find you. But I see you're with Obi, so there's no cause for concern."_

 _Obi's heart skips a beat._

" _Those are orbia flowers, right? Master told me you were collecting the seeds," he comments, smiling his best unreadable smile._

" _That's right!" Shirayuki says, smiling down at the plant. "They come in different colors. I've almost got a complete set. All I'm missing a blue."_

 _Obi feels more than sees Ryu's eyes flick in his direction, and knows the kid is thinking of the blue orbia seed still resting in Obi's palm. Obi deftly closes his fingers and smiles more broadly._

" _Let me know when you've got a complete set," he tells her. "I'd like to see it."_

 _He meets Ryu's eyes and shoots the kid a conspiratorial wink. Ryu's eyes widen, but he doesn't say a word._

 _._

* * *

They were running again. They always seemed to be running. Obi didn't mind. He'd been running most of his life. Of course, it was different now. Now there was someone running beside him.

Shirayuki's red hair flared around her snow-pale face, gleaming in the torchlight as she looked over her shoulder towards the sound of pursuit echoing up the stone corridor behind them.

"Stop her!" one of the squadron of armored guards shouted. There was a metallic hiss of swords leaving their scabbards. "By order of the Prelate! She must not escape!"

Her lively green eyes sharpened with fear. It sent a stab of frustrated anger and bittersweet longing straight through him. Unthinking, he grabbed her hand and sped up, pulling her behind him.

.

* * *

" _Slow down, Obi!"_

 _He turns, and the laughter in Shirayuki's lively green eyes pierces him with a stab of bittersweet longing. He wants to make her chase him more. Like she made him want to chase her that day at Laxdo, a lifetime ago, in a world before snow white skin and apple red hair and laughing emeralds. A world long gone._

 _Captivated, he hides his thoughts with an unrepentant grin and folds his arms smugly behind his head._

" _Problem?" he teases._

" _Okay, I admit it, I can't keep up," she complains, trotting to a halt before him, that edge of laughter shining through even as she pants with exertion. "We can't all be half animal!"_

 _Obi has been called an animal before. Usually as an insult. Terms like 'stray cat bastard' and 'monkey man' leap readily to mind. Coming from her, it feels like an endearment. Though that somehow hurts worse than an insult, he doesn't mind._

" _Don't blame me, Little Miss, you're the one who wanted to learn self-defense," he says, spreading his arms and shrugging expansively, as though the matter is entirely out of his hands. "What was it? 'Oh please, great and powerful Master Obi, whip this pitiful lay-about into shape and teach me your ways so that I'm not constantly being kidnapped?' Something like that, wasn't it?"_

 _His voice is light, despite the way his insides twist at the memory of her abduction from the palace in Tanbarun. When she scowls up at him in a valiant attempt at scorn, then loses to herself and laughs out loud, the twisting feeling subsides, and is replaced with warmth and determination._

" _Something like that," she concedes ruefully, wiping a trickle of sweat from her cheek and straightening._

 _No, not sweat._

 _Unthinking, he reaches up and wipes a second tear from her cheek where it has mingled deceptively with the sweat._

" _Why?" he wonders aloud, unable to muster his usual mask of bravado._

 _Her cheeks heat to match her hair – not from his touch, he is careful not to misunderstand, but because he caught her out._

 _Even through tears and self-deprecation, her smile makes the world a little brighter._

" _I'm frustrated," she admits. "I thought I could learn how to fight, but now I realize I can barely even run." She holds her hands in front of her, staring at them in consternation, then curls them into tight little balls of determination. "I want to be able to fight beside my friends. But I'm so weak. I don't want to be burden."_

 _Her fists are tiny. Delicate knots of slender, capable fingers, rough around the edges, with specks of dirt under the nails from working in the herb gardens. They are suddenly fascinating. They fit easily in his palms as his fingers fold around them. An indrawn breath and a question in her eyes as she looks up at him are her only response._

" _These hands aren't made for killing," he says, memorizing the shape and feel of her determination. "I'll teach you to how to fight. And more importantly I'll teach you when to fight. But for right now, I'm going to teach you how to run." He lets her see a smaller, gentler smile – still unreadable, but closer to the truth. "Protecting you is no burden, Miss. And if you want to help in a fight, just knowing that you can escape to safety when the time comes will lift a tremendous burden off of the hearts of the people who love you…"_

 _He realizes his voice is too rough as he trails off, dark on the edges. Master was right; he might end up scaring Ryu one of these days. But Shirayuki doesn't look frightened as her fists unfurl under his touch. The pads of her fingers brush his. Her callouses catch on his own. They're warm. The wind is rushing in his ears as it dances through the blushing fan of her hair. He is_ very _careful not to misunderstand._

" _Alright," she says quietly, emerald eyes watching him soberly through the windblown flutter of crimson. "I understand."_

 _Does she? He doubts it, and part of him is glad she doesn't. It's the same part of him that lets him drop her hands and back away, instead of pulling her closer._

" _Well, then don't just stand there," he turns away, brightening his unreadable smile to scatter the intimacy of the moment, his head turning last so that his eyes can linger on her a rapid heartbeat longer, before he sets off, calling over his shoulder, "Catch me if you can!"_

 _And though she certainly tries, he never lets her. It isn't entirely self-serving, he tells himself, lying._

 _But it doesn't really matter. Either way, he will never leave her defenseless. Not while there is life left in him._

 _._

* * *

"If they catch us like this we'll be defenseless!" Obi snarled in frustration at the shadows of the seemingly endless corridor. Shirayuki found it hard to breath around the lump of fear in her throat. If Obi was this nervous, things must be worse than she thought. And she knew things were pretty awful.

The Prelate's fortress was like a rat's warren; bits of it had been razed and rebuilt so many times that it had been left a maze of corridors and staircases with seemingly no method to the madness of the floor plan. Given the nature of their situation, Shirayuki couldn't say she was surprised. Right now she wouldn't mind putting it to the torch herself.

A moment later she took the uncharitable thought back, knowing that if she ever did such a thing, she'd be running into the burning building moments later trying to warn the guards and save the household staff and mixing an infusion to treat smoke inhalation for the wildly superstitious Prelate Genjihara himself, even as he spewed orders for her to be executed as a crimson-haired demon sorceress.

Maybe she really was too soft-hearted. No wonder she was always causing her friends so much trouble. It was a miracle Zen had been able to put up with her long enough to fall in love with her, much less anyone else.

Obi dragged her forward so fast she thought her arm might fall off. Shirayuki didn't like the labored quality of his breathing. There was no way even someone like him could have made it through the gauntlet of armed attackers in the Prelate's audience chamber unscathed. She wanted to tell him to stop and rest, but there was no time. The sound of pursuit was still growing louder, closer by the minute.

Peering over her shoulder again, she caught a glimpse of torchlight flashing along the wicked line of bare steel in the distance. Fear was a thing with claws crawling up her throat to clash with righteous, burning anger. Zen had once convinced her that her red hair was a mark of good fortune – of fate – but once again it had led the people she cared about into danger.

Obi darted sideways so abruptly that Shirayuki almost shot past him. But his grip on her hand was sure, and he pulled her after him into a narrow alcove, little more than a notch in the stonework, almost invisible unless you knew it was there, or had exceptional senses, like her companion. He pulled her close, an arm around her shoulder, hugging her into the shadows, and motioned for silence. She cowered against him, breathless despite his diligent instruction on the art of running, and willed herself to be as still and small as possible. The sound of pursuit reached a crescendo. She pressed her face into his chest, his body a reassuring wall of warmth. Breathing in his familiar scent, she shivered.

.

* * *

 _She cannot top shivering._

" _I t-told you we should have g-g-gone back," Obi stutters sulkily as he piles up some of the snow drifting into the little cave as a barricade against the blowing ice and howling wind. He moves stiffly, his whole body shaking with cold._

" _You're r-right. I'm s-s-sorry," Shirayuki replies miserably, teeth chattering. "But it only g-grows under s-snow." Guiltily she squeezes the bundle of herbs she's clutching, before forcing her fingers open; if she crushes them, then she's put them in danger for nothing. "Even Lyrias can't cultivate it. It's v-v-very rare…"_

 _The herbs Shuka had sent her when Obi had last visited Laxdo had been such a prize that when she had joined Zen's expedition to inspect the fort after the end of his six-month suspension, she'd been unable to resist the opportunity to go pick some for herself. Zen had relented to her pleading, despite signs that bad weather was on the horizon, on the condition that Obi go with her._

 _Obi never refuses to go with her. Sometimes she suspects he would go with her even if he was told not to._

" _Well you better hope we don't f-f-freeze to death, or they're g-going to go to waste. Wouldn't that be a s-s-shame." The words should sting with recrimination, but Obi smiles at her over his shoulder, that odd, infectious, unreadable smile, and it takes all the bite out of them. "But next time, do me a f-favor and avoid the r-r-river." It is a wonder, the way he can make any situation seem a little less dire; even, it turns out, when his lips are turning blue with cold. Sometimes it can be vexing. Right now, all it makes her feel is determined._

" _T-take off your clothes," she says briskly._

" _No way we'll find f-firewood dry enough to – I'm sorry, what?" As she shrugs out of her cloak and begins clumsily working on the buttons of her dripping gown, his eyes widen and dart away. "Um… what?" he repeats eloquently._

" _You heard m-me," she snaps, refusing to back down despite the heat she can feel flooding her cheeks – her face is the only part of her that is warm right now. "Our clothes are s-soaked. If we don't get them off, we'll only freeze f-faster. Now is not the time for m-m-modesty."_

 _He hesitates only a moment, then sighs heavily and begins pulling at his sodden, ice-encrusted clothes._

" _Practical to the l-last, Little Miss," he mutters, so quietly that she's probably not meant to hear, but the cave is tiny, barely more than a crevasse in the cliff face, and in the quiet behind the wall of snow, sound carries. From the corner of her eye she can just make out his expression, but she cannot decipher it._

 _In short order they are stripped to their underthings, the rest of their garments arrayed around the little space dry as best they might be able. The movement has helped circulate her blood, and already she begins feels warmer. The shivering eases. She hopes it's the snow-insulated cave slowly filling with their heat, and not the onset of hypothermia. They huddle together anyway, hoarding the warmth. By unspoken accord, his arms close around her shoulders and she encircles his middle with hers and they press close._

 _Skin to skin. It's practical._

 _Oddly incongruous with the situation, something inside her stills, then stirs._

 _The failing light from the blocked cave entrance paints the subterranean world in stark shades of dark on dark. The familiar smell of him – animal musk, clean sweat, turned earth and sunlight - is thick in the air around her, driving back the stink of ice and snow and river water, and she swallows hard, suddenly intensely aware of his maleness._

 _She has never been naked with a man before. Not even Zen has seen her body._

 _Obi is strangely quiet beside her. She can feel his muscles shift under his skin, rigid, she tells herself, with the cold. His hands feel hot as brands where they spread against her bare back. In the dearth of light and sound, in the grip of near shadows and the magnified gale of their close, quiet breathing, she can feel every place his skin touches hers with absolute clarity._

 _It's the cold, she repeats to herself, very, very carefully. Just the cold making every touch seem so unreasonably hot._

 _The silence between them is so intense that she is suddenly afraid of what will happen if she doesn't break it._

" _They'll probably come looking for us once the storm breaks," she offers._

 _Obi takes a beat too long to reply, and when he does his usual irreverence has a strained quality that tells her he feels the tension too. It's comforting somehow. They're in this together._

 _His voice seems very loud, startlingly close, in the quiet._

" _Heh. Can you imagine the look on Master's face if he found us like this?"_

 _She grimaces into the gloom, mortified. "Don't even joke about that."_

" _You're right, best not," he laughs. "He'd challenge me to a duel for your honor, and then I'd have to kick his butt. I'd lose my job and then who would be there to drag you indoors when your too head's too full of plants to notice there's a blizzard falling on it?"_

 _With her suddenly superhuman body sense, she feels his fingers trail lightly through her damp hair, as though to underscore his point. It totally undermines the carelessness of his tone._

" _Don't be absurd," she blushes again without knowing why, her voice unintentionally tart. "Zen would understand. He asked you to protect me because he knows he can trust you."_

 _It was the wrong thing to say, she realizes as she speaks. She should have bantered back at him over the comment about her head being full of plants, or flattered him that Kiki and Mitsuhide might be equal to the task of looking after her if they worked together. Something. Anything. Why does she pick that part of his taunt to respond to? Like that night in Tanbarun, on their adjacent balconies – these odd moments, always in the dark, when she finds it so inexplicably difficult to talk to Obi about Zen. What are they?_

 _She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to turn her mind to more appropriate thoughts. Practical, be practical. It's difficult. She must be more tired than she realized._

 _Obi's arms tighten around her. The cave is definitely getting warmer and despite her confusion, his nearness is a comfort. She's growing drowsy, her metabolism working overtime to produce her share of the heat they need to survive the storm. There, that was a practical thought. To reward herself, she leans into him, letting her head settle into the curve of his neck. Animal musk, clean sweat, turned earth, sunlight…_

" _Not afraid I'll take advantage of the situation?" His voice is strange._

" _You wouldn't do that," she murmurs around a yawn._

 _Obi doesn't respond, and he's quiet for so long that she thinks he isn't going to. She begins to doze in his arms._

" _Master says he trusts me," she finally hears him say, as though from a long way off, "but I'm still a man, you know."_

 _His voice is definitely strange, but she is already succumbing to sleep._

" _I trust you, too," she murmurs, snuggling closer into his warmth. His fingers tighten against her skin._

 _It is impossible to be sure, and she will never ask, but she thinks she feels the tickle of his breath on her scalp and a gentle pressure atop her head, and a part of her will always wonder if she dreamed it - that he is kissing her hair._

 _When he speaks, two words barely above a whisper, he sounds wounded._

" _I know."_

 _She wants to ask him where it hurts, but sleep has already claimed her._

 _._

* * *

"Where does it hurt?" Shirayuki demanded.

The guards clamored past the alcove and disappeared down the corridor. Obi reluctantly pushed her out into the passage ahead of him, wishing they were back in the endless warmth and quiet of that cave outside Laxdo. Wishing now that he'd laid everything on the line, acted like the scoundrel everyone always used to say he was, and done something unforgivable. Little Miss would never have spoken to him again. Master would have sent him away, if he was lucky. Mitsuhide would have hit him. Miss Kiki would definitely have stabbed him, possibly more than once.

Still, right now those seemed like small prices to pay. Barring a miracle, he didn't see how they were getting out of this place in one piece. He can't remember a time when he was naïve enough to believe in miracles.

He should have risked it. Regret was a hell of a thing.

"Obi?" Shirayuki insisted as he brushed past her.

Obi smirked fatalistically. Damn. It had been easier when they were running, but moving slowly he was unable to completely hide the way he was favoring his right side. Those emerald eyes were just too sharp – they stabbed deeper than the sword that had opened the wound in his side. Her gaze hurt him so much more than usual right now, but he couldn't regret meeting it. The pain was proof that he was still alive.

"It's nothing," he lied, flashing her an easy, unreadable grin and scuffing his foot against the floor to hide the blood drops on the stone underneath him. He snatched up her hand, deliberate and unrepentant, and turned back the way they'd come. "We need to move."

"Where to?" she asked faintly as he gritted his teeth and pulled her once more into a run. "There's no way out of here."

The tremor in her voice shook him, making him shore up and focus through the increasing pain of each breath. Making him ready for what had to come next.

"There is one way," he told her bracingly, squeezing her hand tighter and shooting her a wink over his shoulder. "Not to worry, Little Miss. I've got an idea."

.

* * *

" _Where to?" Obi asks, shifting the slight bulk of the basket in his hands as he trails after her._

" _The second store room for now," Shirayuki replies, voice slightly muffled by the face cloth. Laden with baskets full of roka berries, neither of them has bothered to pull their masks off yet. Obi can't help but admire how the rough cloth covering her mouth and nose makes her hair and eyes seem even brighter._

 _Despite the mask, he can see that she's smiling. He once thoughtlessly tore it away, unconsciously desperate to see the expression on her face, but that was a long time ago. He doesn't always need to see her face anymore to know what she's thinking; they've spent so much time together that sometimes he can read her thoughts in her eyes._

" _They'll need to be preserved, but Ryu is in the middle of one of his research binges in the work room," she elaborates, "so we can't take them there. His notes are spread out on every available surface, and most of the floor too."_

" _That kid! If the floor's taken, where's he sleeping?"_

" _The exam room! I told him he should just give in and sleep in the dormitory, but he says it's too inconvenient to sleep in a separate building…"_

 _She keeps up a steady stream of pleasant, engaging conversation. And when she has no more to say, the silence that blooms between them is natural and comfortable. Some people struggle to fill quiet moments with meaningless chatter, as though trying to apologize for their presence though half-hearted attempts to be entertaining. Shirayuki is not one of them. Her silences are as eloquent as her words. She is entirely at ease with herself and those around her. Maybe that's why walking next to her feels like going home._

 _Home. It's a notion so absurd it borders on hysterical for someone like him. He, a walking weapon, drenched in years of blood and lies and shadows, has the audacity to feel at home here, digging in the sunshine and earth and greenery, hauling bushels of healing herbs around a palace garden beside a beautiful, intelligent woman that belongs to another man._

 _Trow would laugh herself sick if she could see him now. But what he told her during that last job at the inn outside of Tanbarun is the truth – maybe the most honest he's ever been. A part of his soul belongs to these people now – and to the girl walking beside him – and there is no getting it back._

 _The blue orbia seed, which he has taken to carrying around in his pocket in some sort of perverse fit of wanton sentimentality, seems to throb with presence. The kid had said he should plant it when he reached the place where he was likely to stay…_

 _They have reached the store room. Distracted, he nearly walks into her back. She turns his way. The small noise that is the beginning of new words dies on her lips as she stares._

 _And he realizes belatedly that his eyes have softened with his thoughts. They are standing too close, barely enough room for the midafternoon sunlight to shine between them . The roka fumes must be penetrating his mask, because his vision is swimming; the only thing in the world that will come into focus are her eyes._

 _His guard is down, and her eyes are on his, and with his face covered, he can't disarm her with an unreadable smile._

 _He is her bodyguard. They see each other nearly every day. Circumstance has tied her to him more closely than just about anyone, even Master. They are constantly watching each other, constantly relying on each other, constantly learning each other. Somewhere along the way, it seems they have slipped insidiously inside each other's minds, inhabiting each other without ever consciously realizing it._

 _So much so, it is clear, that sometimes she can read his thoughts in his eyes._

 _Her eyes widen and her skin pinks, but her gaze is like a paring knife, cutting through any notion of dissemination. So he doesn't even bother to try and hide. He lets her look. Let's her see. Her eyes widen further._

" _You know, Miss..." his tone is surprisingly casual as his hand strays slowly towards his pocket. "…I have something I want to give you."_

 _She blinks, nonplussed._

" _Wh—"_

" _Shirayuki!" They turn to see Mitsuhide hurrying up the corridor towards them. She looks relieved. He supposes he is too, in a way. Any disappointment would be pure conceit, since he's never let himself harbor any illusions._

" _Mitsuhide!" When she tugs the cloth away from her face, it seems to Obi more like she's putting a mask on than taking one off. "Is something wrong?"_

" _Not precisely," he grimaces wryly. "But a messenger just arrived from Prelate Genjihara, and now Prince Izana wants to speak to you."_

 _Obi understands the knight's ambivalence. Prince Izana had a track record of being the bearer of news that inevitably turns out to be bad._

" _Sounds like fun!" Obi interjects, showing Shirayuki his typical, unreadable smile. "Best not keep him waiting!"_

 _He falls in beside her as she trails after Mitsuhide. She glances up at him once. He makes a point of looking straight at her and shooting her another anticipatory, unreadable grin, as though all his thoughts are on whatever misadventure they're headed towards next. She studies him for a long moment, and he sees her battle herself to a stalemate and smile pleasantly back._

 _Relief wars with conceited disappointment._

 _Ah well. There will be time to sort it all out when they get back from this business with the prelate._

 _._

* * *

They were out of time. Shirayuki could feel the certainty of it growing in her bones.

Regardless, Obi drew her decisively through the fortress maze. She'd almost forgotten the remarkable sense of direction and distance he'd displayed in Lyrias, when he retraced the path of the hidden cave system unerringly from atop the cliffs. So she was astonished all over again when they rounded a corner and the gateway through which they'd entered the fortress suddenly came into view across a small courtyard.

"Obi!" she cried, dizzied by an unexpected flash of hope. "You're amazing!"

"You're only realizing that now?" he teased wryly, but the tense, urgent quality of his tone made the joke fall flat.

Shirayuki didn't feel much like laughing anyway. The gateway consisted of a narrow causeway and a raised iron portcullis. One of the two guards stationed to either side shouted an alarm as he spotted them. Obi dropped her hand, and an instant later each of the guards had one of his throwing knives blooming from his neck. They dropped without another sound, but the damage was done and the sounds of pursuit were closing in once more. They could escape through the gate, but once out in the open they'd never make it to the distant tree line before the archers took them down. Not even Obi could outrun an arrow.

"We need a plan," she said, her fingers closing into fists of determination against the desperate truth of their situation.

"I told you," Obi huffed as he pulled her under the wicked iron spikes of the portcullis, "I already have one."

Shirayuki opened her mouth to ask what –

Obi skidded to a halt, rounding on her, his fingers tightening on hers as the momentum of her run brought her crashing into him and –

.

* * *

… _animal musk, clean sweat, turned earth, sunlight. And an acrid coppery tang over it all that she recognizes all too well. His body is the same collection of rigid planes she remembers from the cave in the blizzard, but this time his hands are not careful in the least as he pulls her close, and the wetness under her hands is too dark and sticky to be snowmelt._

 _His lips are rougher than Zen's. The shape and pressure against hers are distinctly different, reckless rather than controlled, taking rather than asking. It has never occurred to her that a kiss may not be the same between one person and another, but she learns today that different kisses exist in entirely different worlds. He tastes like lightning before a storm, and the prelate's wine, and that same bitter tang of copper._

 _Horror blooms through shock and fades into sorrow as he pulls away, their breath loud and close in the small space between them, to realize that she must have his blood on her mouth._

… _internal bleeding, punctured lung, all that running, a kiss laden with unsatisfied longing and regret…_

 _He tastes like goodbye._

" _Obi…"_

 _He shoves her hard. As she stumbles backwards out of the causeway into the open air, falling away from the unfathomable look in his eyes, she hears the rattling crash of the portcullis coming down between them, accompanied by a pained grunt and the sound of the winch mechanism splintering under a powerful kick._

 _._

* * *

Wrenched back to reality by the impact of the flagstones, Shirayuki was on her feet again in an instant, throwing herself against the iron bars.

"What do you think you're doing!" she shouted at him where he leaned wearily against the shattered winch, her voice jagged as shattered glass in her own ears.

In the torchlight she could finally clearly see the sheen of the dense, heavy stain spreading over his black coat, as well as the state of her hands, covered in his blood where they gripped the bars. He looked up, met her eyes. It was too much blood. They both knew it.

And she already knew what he was doing. She just couldn't accept it. With the winch broken, the portcullis couldn't be raised, and the guards would be trapped inside, giving anyone outside the wall a chance to flee.

The trouble was, whoever disabled the winch was trapped as well.

"I'll hold off the archers as long as I can," he said matter-of-factly. "Get to the woods. Master is out there somewhere waiting for us to send word." He managed a wry, unreadable smile through the pain, glancing away. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"Obi…"

His defenses faltered as he saw the tears start in her eyes.

"It's alright, Little Miss. In my line of work, it was always going to happen this way. I don't have any regrets."

It was such an audacious lie as he memorized the shape of her face and the color of her eyes and the way the torchlight shone on her hair that he nearly laughed out loud. He liked that. He wasn't opposed to dying laughing.

"You think I can accept that?" she wailed, pounding ineffectually at the unyielding iron and spiking him with the shards of denial in her eyes. "I can't!"

"Miss…"

"No!"

"Are you really ready to die here?" he snapped, rounding on her, panting with exertion as the edges of his vision darkened. "Are you really ready to leave Master and the others like that?"

Jaw set, she glared at him. So stubborn. Stubborn as they day they met, when he shot an arrow at her and it didn't even slow her down. Was that when he first loved her? Surely not. And yet, she'd never changed in all the time he'd known her, ever steadfast, an anchor holding him at her side. It was like he'd loved her all along, and had just been waiting to meet her.

She had to live. The alternative was unfathomable.

"I won't leave you here!"

"My, my," he drawled scornfully, trying a new tact. "Choosing me over the Master. Am I that precious to you?"

"Yes," she whispered, and his world shook. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "You are! So you can't… you can't…"

Shirayuki barely recognized the words as they rushed out of her mouth, bypassing her brain completely. The simple, underlying truth of them did not require the slightest thought. She was in love with Zen, and that would never stop being true. But Obi was… she was… she and Obi were…

It wasn't the same, but… it wasn't different either.

Why? Why now? Why only when… when he was about to…

Closing his eyes, Obi dipped a hand in his belt pocket. Wordlessly, he drew out the blue orbia seed he always carried with him and, reaching through the iron grating, placed it carefully in her palm. He met her eyes as he closed her hand around it, folding his fingers around hers. He felt like he'd been inhaling roka fumes again, because the world was swimming, and the only thing that would come into focus was her face.

"You need a blue one to complete your collection, right? Ryu gave that to me. He said…" her eyes were so bright they were going to break him, "…he said I should plant it when I found the place I wanted to stay…"

It wasn't what he really wanted to say. But maybe it was close enough.

"You can't…" Shirayuki repeated in a whimper, her fist squeezing tight around the seed. At a loss, she pressed her lips lingeringly against the back of his hand in a silent, desperate plea, her tears bathing his skin, washing rivulets through blood. "You can't…" she whispered fiercely.

Obi stared at her, his eyes wide and unreadable. His expression had smoothed to something almost peaceful. Resolved. It terrified her.

Slowly, deliberately, heedless of her resistance, he disentangled his hands from hers. He turned away, his head turning last so that his eyes could linger on her a few failing heartbeats longer. There was a smile, a true smile, on his bloody lips as she lost sight of his face.

Obi managed to stagger several steps out of her reach, his ears ringing. He didn't dare look back at her. He didn't dare break the spell she'd just cast. Maybe she really was a sorceress.

"Remember what I told you," he said, his voice rough and quiet as the first armored guards spilled into the courtyard, fanning out to surround him, "about easing the burden on the hearts of the ones who love you?"

Silence. Furious, terrified, defiant, agonized silence.

He fell into an unsteady crouch, centering himself, and drew his knives.

"If you do, then please. Run."

A muffled sob reached him. The faint shuffle of reluctant, indecisive feet.

"Shirayuki."

It was the first time he'd ever said her name out loud. It seemed to carry in the acoustics of the courtyard, echoing off the stone like a prayer. He heard her pause.

"Thank you."

Since he refused to look back, his last impressions of her were a finite set of sounds. A pained, shuddering breath. A whisper that reached him over the din of the soldiers rushing towards him. And the patter of small, running feet fading into the distance.

"Obi…" the whisper reached him. A prayer answered.

The archers nocked arrows. Blades flashing, he leapt. Blood sprayed, and not all of it was his.

He never left her defenseless. Not while there was life left in him.

.

* * *

 _Two days later, Prince Izana's men storm and occupy the fortress, and arrest Prelate Genjihara for attempted murder of a Clarines Court Herbalist._

 _After an investigation, it is revealed that there are no guards left to punish for the death of the Second Prince's Messenger. No one left the courtyard alive that night._

 _._

* * *

 _There is a small memorial stone set into a corner of the herb garden. It is Zen's idea. When he suggests it, he meets Shirayuki's eyes, and the knowing there, the uncritical understanding, are humbling. There are no words to define the dynamic that existed between the three of them, or the complex depth mingled grief and resentment Zen must also strive untangle in his own time. It takes Shirayuki a long time to understand even a small part of her place in that web._

 _In the end, it all came down to circumstance. She would never have met Obi, would never have grown so close to him, would never have become so inseparably intertwined with him – would never have so easily and inexplicably and undeniably loved him – if she hadn't met and loved Zen first._

 _But because she knew the remarkable man that was Zen – because she loved Zen with the unerring surety of a compass needle finding true north – she could never have been with Obi the way she now knew she would someday have wanted to. The three of them had spent a golden time suspending in a state of grace together, but no matter how she looked at it, it was an impossible impasse._

 _Even so… even if it would always have ended in pain, without ever having truly begun… even so, she could not regret that for a short, bright time, she had walked her path by Obi's side._

 _._

* * *

 _When Ryu notices the princess's pendant necklace – a blue orbia seed encased in glass set in place of a stone – he asks her why she doesn't plant the seed instead._

 _Shirayuki Wisteria, Second Princess of Clarines, folds her hand around the seed, and for an instant experiences the phantom sensation of a larger hand wrapped gently, protectively around her own._

" _It's a seed that was never going to have a chance to grow," she tells him with a soft, sad smile. "But I want to treasure it all the same."_

 _._

* * *

End

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* * *

 **A/n** : Have I ruined your day yet? Sorry, not sorry, I'm a total raging Obi/Shirayuki shipper, which may well surprise you after the above. No one knows why I feel compelled to subject my favorite characters to torture and tragedy, though leading scientists have speculated that it's because I am what you would call, in technical terms, pure evil.

Anyway, thoughts? Leave a review, please!


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